WO 2008/055567 discloses a parking steering assistance system having at least one sensor for detecting obstacles and/or free areas in an environment transverse to the longitudinal direction of the motor vehicle, an evaluation and control system for evaluating the sensor signals and controlling vehicle systems in order to drive into a parking space without any steering intervention by the driver in an activated automatic parking mode of the motor vehicle, it being possible for the automatic parking mode to be activated by means of detecting actions of the driver without confirmation by the driver in respect of a parking proposal. However, this activation of the automatic parking mode without confirmation by the driver reliably presupposes that an area which is to be driven over in order to park has been identified as being free of obstacles taking into consideration safety distances and tolerances. If this is not the case, a corresponding driver input, that is to say confirmation of the parking proposal, has to be performed before activation of the automatic parking mode.
Furthermore, DE 10 2006 026 092 A1 discloses a method for controlling a parking process which is to carried out at least partially automatically and by means of which a motor vehicle is moved from an actual position to a desired position. In this case, an image of the environment of the motor vehicle and a virtual target object in the environment are displayed by a display unit in the interior of the motor vehicle. The image position of the target object is changed as a function of operator control actions by the driver and, as a result, the desired position of the motor vehicle is changed and the parking process is correspondingly adapted.
Furthermore, DE 100 45 616 A1 describes a method for automatically parking a motor vehicle in a parking space, in which method the area surrounding the sides of a motor vehicle is displayed in plan view by means of a video camera and the driver selects the desired parking space by means of a touch screen.